2013 Year In Review

CHRIS TALBOTT, The Associated Press
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Unforgettable songs like "Tennessee Waltz" and "(How Much Is That) Doggie in the Window?" made Patti Page the best-selling female singer of the 1950s and a star who would spend much of the rest of her life traveling the world.
When...

FRAZIER MOORE, The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Conrad Bain, a veteran stage and film actor who became a star in middle age as the kindly white adoptive father of two young African-American brothers in the TV sitcom "Diff'rent Strokes," has died.
Bain died Monday of natural causes in...

DAVID GINSBURG, The Associated Press
BALTIMORE (AP) — Earl Weaver always was up for an argument, especially with an umpire.
At the slightest provocation, the Earl of Baltimore would spin his hat back, point his finger squarely at an ump's chest and then fire away. The Hall of Fame manager...

BOB THOMAS, The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Patty Andrews never served in the military, but she and her singing sisters certainly supported the troops.
During World War II, they hawked war bonds, entertained soldiers overseas and boosted morale on the home-front with tunes like ...

DEEPTI HAJELA, The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — In 1977, New York City was deep into its worst fiscal crisis ever. Riots erupted that summer during a blackout. And a fire in one of the most blighted parts of town that fall led sports commentator Howard Cosell to announce during a World...

CHRIS TALBOTT, The Associated Press
HEBER SPRINGS, Arkansas (AP) — Mindy McCready threatened to kill herself after losing custody of her sons earlier this month, yet she was allowed to leave a court-ordered drug rehabilitation program days before she apparently killed herself, her ex-boyfriend...

CONNIE CASS, The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Dr. C. Everett Koop has long been regarded as the nation's doctor— even though it has been nearly a quarter-century since he was surgeon general.
Koop, who died Monday at his home in Hanover, N.H., at age 96, was by far the best known and...

ANGELA K. BROWN, The Associated Press
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — For a time in Cold War America, Van Cliburn had all the trappings of a rock star: sold-out concerts, adoring, out-of-control fans and a name recognized worldwide. He even got a ticker-tape parade in New York City.
And he did it...

FRAZIER MOORE, The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Bonnie Franklin, the pert, redheaded actress whom millions came to identify with for her role as divorced mom Ann Romano on the long-running sitcom "One Day at a Time," has died.
She died Friday at her home in Los Angeles due to...

FRANK BAJAK, The Associated Press
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Hugo Chavez was a former paratroop commander and self-styled "subversive" who waged continual battle for his socialist ideals. He bedeviled the United States and outsmarted his rivals time and again, while using Venezuela's...

DENISE LAVOIE, The Associated Press
BOSTON (AP) — Two-time Pulitzer winner Anthony Lewis, whose New York Times column championed liberal causes for three decades, died Monday. He was 85.
Lewis worked for 32 years as a columnist for the Times, taking up such causes as free speech, human...

CARYN ROUSSEAU, The Associated Press
CHICAGO (AP) — Roger Ebert had the most-watched thumb in Hollywood.
With a twist of his wrist, the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic rendered decisions that influenced a nation of moviegoers and could sometimes make or break a film.
The heavy-set writer...

JOHN ROGERS, The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jonathan Winters was a crowd all by himself, guaranteeing that his multitude of characters, breakneck improvisations and kinetic clownishness kept generations of fans laughing.
Winters, who died Thursday at age 87 at his Montecito,...

CHICAGO (AP) — Maria Tallchief, one of America's first great prima ballerinas who gave life to such works as "The Nutcracker," ''Firebird," and other masterpieces from legendary choreographer George Balanchine, has died. She was 88.

BOSTON (AP) — The painstaking work to identify a bombing suspect from reams of Boston Marathon footage yielded a possible breakthrough as investigators focused on a man seen dropping off a bag, and then walking away from the site of the second of two deadly explosions.
The discovery of the...

STEPHEN HAWKINS, The Associated Press
DALLAS (AP) — The voice of football. The NFL's narrator for generations. A master of restraint.
Pat Summerall soothed American television audiences over four decades — his deep, resonant voice and simple, understated style served as the perfect...

WEST, Texas (AP) — Rescue workers searched the smoldering ruins of a fertilizer plant Thursday for survivors of a monstrous explosion that leveled homes and businesses in every direction across the Texas prairie. Thus far, authorities report that 14 people were killed in the blast, and more than...

SYDNEY (AP) — Chrissy Amphlett, the raunchy lead singer of the Australian rock band Divinyls whose hit "I Touch Myself" brought her international fame in the early 1990s, died at her home in New York City on Sunday. She was 53 years old.

CHRIS TALBOTT, The Associated Press
NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) — George Jones, the peerless, hard-living country singer who recorded dozens of hits about good times and regrets and peaked with the heartbreaking classic "He Stopped Loving Her Today," has died. He was 81.
Jones died Friday at...

LYNN ELBER, The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jeanne Cooper, the enduring soap opera star who played grande dame Katherine Chancellor for nearly four decades on "The Young and the Restless," has died. She was 84.
Cooper died Wednesday morning in her sleep, her son the actor Corbin...

SANDY COHEN, The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Before Dr. Phil and Dr. Drew and Dr. Oz, there was Joyce Brothers.
The popular psychologist pioneered the television advice show in the 1950s, opening the airwaves to discussions of love, marriage and parenting, as well as such taboo...

CHRIS TALBOTT, The Associated Press
Ray Manzarek, a founding member of the 1960s rock group The Doors whose versatile and often haunting keyboards complemented Jim Morrison's gloomy baritone and helped set the mood for some of rock's most enduring songs, has died. He was 74.
Manzarek died...

CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN, The Associated Press
MOORE, Okla. (AP) — One was an animal lover. Another loved the spotlight. Another was nicknamed "The Wall" because of the force he brought to the soccer field.
When a top-of-the-scale EF5 tornado ripped through Moore, Okla., it took with it 24 lives...

NEW YORK (AP) — Jean Stapleton, the stage-trained character actress who played Archie Bunker's far better half, the sweetly naive Edith, in TV's groundbreaking 1970s comedy "All in the Family," has died. She was 90.
Stapleton died Friday of natural causes at her New York City home surrounded...

Associated Press, The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Frank Lautenberg, the oldest member of the U.S. Senate and the last World War II veteran serving there, has died at age 89.
His office said that the multimillionaire New Jersey Democrat, the son of Polish and Russian Jewish immigrants...

LYNN ELBER, The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) — James Gandolfini's lumbering, brutish mob boss with the tortured psyche will endure as one of TV's indelible characters.
But his portrayal of criminal Tony Soprano in HBO's landmark drama series "The Sopranos" was just one facet of an...

MIAMI (AP) — Country singer Slim Whitman, the high-pitched yodeler who sold millions of records through ever-present TV ads in the 1980s and 1990s and whose song saved the world in the film comedy "Mars Attacks!," died Wednesday at a Florida hospital. He was...

ADRIAN SAINZ, The Associated Press
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Full, sweet and melodious at one moment, powerful and primal in another, the iconic singing voice of the late Bobby "Blue" Bland was remembered by fans, friends and colleagues on Monday.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson told The Associated...

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — "Glee" actor Cory Monteith died of an overdose of heroin and alcohol, the British Columbia coroner's office said Tuesday.
"There is no evidence to suggest Mr. Monteith's death was anything other than a most tragic accident," the office said in a statement.
...

CALVIN WOODWARD, The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Helen Thomas, a pioneer for women in journalism who used her seat in the front row of history to grill nine U.S. presidents and refused to keep her strong opinions to herself, died Saturday. She was 92.
Thomas died surrounded by family...

FRAZIER MOORE, The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Dennis Farina, a onetime Chicago cop who as a popular actor played a cop on "Law & Order," has died.
Farina died Monday morning in a Scottsdale, Arizona, hospital after suffering a blood clot in his lung, according to his publicist, Lori...

CHRIS TALBOTT, The Associated Press
If musicians were measured not by the number of records they sold but by the number of peers they influenced, JJ Cale would have been a towering figure in 1970s rock 'n' roll.
His best songs like "After Midnight," ''Cocaine" and "Call Me the Breeze" were...

The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Congresswoman Lindy Boggs, a plantation-born Louisianan who used her soft-spoken grace to fight for civil rights during nearly 18 years in Congress after succeeding her late husband in the House of Representatives, died Saturday. She was 97.
...

The Associated Press, The Associated Press
David "Kidd" Kraddick, the high-octane radio and TV host of the "Kidd Kraddick in the Morning" show heard on dozens of U.S. radio stations, has died at a charity golf event near New Orleans, a publicist said. Kraddick was 53.
The Texas-based radio...

DERRIK J. LANG, The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Whether she was issuing orders as an Army captain in "Private Benjamin," rambling as a real-life rendition of Mrs. Peacock from "Clue" or blasting an immortal monster with a shotgun as a crazy cat lady in "Jeepers Creepers," actress...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Harry F. Byrd Jr., a 20th century champion of racial segregation and fiscal restraint who followed his father into the U.S. Senate but left his father's Democratic Party, died Tuesday. He was 98.

By HILLEL ITALIE
AP National Writer
Karen Black, the prolific actress who appeared in more than 100 movies and was featured in such counterculture favorites as "Easy Rider," ''Five Easy Pieces" and "Nashville," has died in Los Angeles.
Black's husband, Stephen Eckelberry, says the actress...

MIKE HOUSEHOLDER, The Associated Press
DETROIT (AP) — He was the master of his genre, the Dickens of Detroit, the Chaucer of Crime.
Pretty much every novel Elmore Leonard wrote from the mid-1980s on was a best-seller, and every fan of crime stories knew his name. George Clooney was an...

MARK KENNEDY, The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Julie Harris, one of Broadway's most honored performers, whose roles ranged from the flamboyant Sally Bowles in "I Am a Camera" to the reclusive Emily Dickinson in "The Belle of Amherst," died Saturday. She was 87.
Harris died at her West...

SYLVIA HUI, The Associated Press
LONDON (AP) — David Frost had sparred with Richard Nixon for hours, recording a series of interviews with the former president three years after he stepped down in disgrace over Watergate. But as the sessions drew to a close, Frost realized he still lacked...

Navy Yard shooting victims had long careers there: Profiles of Victims
WASHINGTON (AP) — A dozen people died in a shooting rampage Monday at the Washington Navy Yard. The shooter also was killed.
It was the deadliest attack at a domestic military installation since November 2009, when an...

HILLEL ITALIE, The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — In 1985, a year after the Cold War thriller "The Hunt for Red October" came out, author Tom Clancy was invited to lunch at the Reagan White House, where he was questioned by Navy Secretary John Lehman.
Who, the secretary wanted to know,...

DAN ELLIOTT, The Associated Press
BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — Astronaut Scott Carpenter had an adventuresome spirit and was driven to know everything he could about the universe, fellow space pioneer John Glenn said Saturday at Carpenter's funeral.
"Scott's curiosity knew no bounds," said Glenn,...

NEW YORK (AP) — Oscar Hijuelos, a Cuban-American novelist who won a Pulitzer Prize for his 1989 novel "The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love" and whose work often captured the losses and triumphs of the Cuban immigrant experience, has died. He was 62.

NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS, The Associated Press
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Former U.S. House Speaker Tom Foley was remembered Friday as a statesman, a husband, and a friend to people great and small.
About 800 people attended a memorial service for the Spokane native at St. Aloysius Church on the...

The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Marcia Wallace, the voice of scoffing schoolteacher Edna Krabappel on "The Simpsons," whose wise-cracking characters on "The Bob Newhart Show" and other prime-time hits endeared her to generations of TV viewers, has died. She was 70.
"Simpsons"...

DAVID BAUDER, The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — The stare from across a desk was enough for me to question whether my first and only interview with Lou Reed had been a good idea.
He'd already curtly dismissed a publicist who had dreamed for years of meeting his musical hero. Now Reed...

ATLANTA (AP) — Walt Bellamy, the Hall of Fame center who averaged 20.1 points and 13.7 rebounds in 14 seasons in the NBA, died Saturday. He was 74.
The Atlanta Hawks confirmed the death, but didn't provide details. The Hawks said Bellamy attended the team's home opener Friday night.
"Walt...

The Associated Press
CHICAGO (AP) — A who's who of the culinary world is among hundreds of people gathered at a Chicago church for a memorial to celebrity chef Charlie Trotter.
Among those who've arrived at Fourth Presbyterian Church Monday are chefs Graham Elliott and Norman Van Aken. Some...

DANICA KIRKA, The Associated Press
LONDON (AP) — Doris Lessing emerged from a black cab outside her home in London one day in 2007 and was confronted by a horde of reporters. When told she had won the Nobel Prize, she blinked and retorted "Oh Christ! ... I couldn't care less."
That was...

CHANNING JOSEPH, The Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Sylvia Browne once said she was just 3 when she discovered she could look into the future and know what was coming.
For the next 74 years, Browne claimed to do just that, predicting who would win elections, which celebrities would...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — While the neighborhood where "Fast & Furious" star Paul Walker died in a fiery crash is known to attract street racers, law enforcement officials do not believe the Porsche he and a friend were riding in had been racing another car.
Accident investigators "have received...

Nelson Mandela »
Former South African President and anti-apartheid revolutionary hero has died

DIED: December 5, 2013

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Nelson Mandela, who became one of the world's most beloved statesmen and a colossus of the 20th century when he emerged from 27 years in prison to negotiate an end to white minority rule in South Africa, has died. He was 95.
South African President Jacob Zuma made the...

JESSICA HERNDON, The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Eleanor Parker, who was nominated for Academy Awards three times for her portrayals of strong-willed women and played a scheming baroness in "The Sound of Music," has died at 91.
Family friend Richard Gale said Parker died Monday...

CHARLES J. GANS, The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Jim Hall, one of the leading jazz guitarists of the modern era, whose subtle technique, lyrical sound and introspective approach strongly influenced younger proteges such as Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell, died early Tuesday at age 83, his...

JILL LAWLESS, The Associated Press
LONDON (AP) — World leaders, film critics and Hollywood stars remembered Peter O'Toole on Monday as an actor of towering talent, blue-eyed Irish charm and unfettered hell-raising — an icon of a vanished, less strait-laced era of filmmaking.
"There won't...

CARMEL, California (AP) — Academy Award-winning actress Joan Fontaine, who found stardom playing naive wives in Alfred Hitchcock's "Suspicion" and "Rebecca" and also was featured in films by Billy Wilder, Fritz Lang and Nicholas Ray, died Sunday. She was 96.

HILLEL ITALIE, The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Ned Vizzini, a popular young adult author and television writer who wrote candidly and humorously about his struggles with depression, has committed suicide. He was 32.
Vizzini jumped off the roof of his parents' home in Brooklyn on Thursday...

DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — John S.D. Eisenhower, the son of a five-star general turned president who forged his own career in the U.S. Army and then chronicled the history of the American military in numerous books, died Saturday. He was 91.
Eisenhower lived on...

LONG BEACH, California (AP) — Studio drummer Ricky Lawson, a collaborator with musicians including Michael Jackson, Eric Clapton, Phil Collins and Whitney Houston, has died at a suburban Los Angeles hospital following a brain aneurism. He was 59.

BALTIMORE (AP) — Paul Blair, the eight-time Gold Glove center fielder who helped the Baltimore Orioles win a pair of World Series titles while gliding to make catches that former teammates still marvel at more than four decades later, has died. He was 69.

The Associated Press
DALLAS (AP) — Dallas billionaire and heavyweight GOP political donor Harold Simmons, who has given tens of millions of dollars to Republican candidates, including Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, has died. He was 82.
Simmons, born to...

The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — James Avery, the bulky character actor who laid down the law at home and on the job as the Honorable Philip Banks in "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," has died.
Avery's publicist, Cynthia Snyder, told The Associated Press that Avery died Tuesday in Glendale...

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